There’s a Very Good Reason College Students Don’t Read Anymore
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/opinion/college-university-students-reading.html
Jonathan Malesic:
In 2011, I taught a college class on the meaning and value of work. … I assigned them nine books. I knew I was asking a lot, but the students did great. Most of them aced their reading quizzes on Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” and Plato’s “The Republic.” In class, our desks in a circle, we had lively discussions.
After 13 years that included a pandemic and the advent of generative A.I., that reading list seems not just ambitious but absurd. I haven’t assigned an entire book in four years. Nationwide, college professors report steep declines in students’ willingness and ability to read on their own. …
But I’m beginning to think students who don’t read are responding rationally to the vision of professional life our society sells them. In that vision, productivity does not depend on labor, and a paycheck has little to do with talent or effort. For decades, students have been told that college is about career readiness and little else. And the task of puzzling out an author’s argument will not prepare students to thrive in an economy that seems to run on vibes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/opinion/college-university-students-reading.html
Jonathan Malesic:
In 2011, I taught a college class on the meaning and value of work. … I assigned them nine books. I knew I was asking a lot, but the students did great. Most of them aced their reading quizzes on Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” and Plato’s “The Republic.” In class, our desks in a circle, we had lively discussions.
After 13 years that included a pandemic and the advent of generative A.I., that reading list seems not just ambitious but absurd. I haven’t assigned an entire book in four years. Nationwide, college professors report steep declines in students’ willingness and ability to read on their own. …
But I’m beginning to think students who don’t read are responding rationally to the vision of professional life our society sells them. In that vision, productivity does not depend on labor, and a paycheck has little to do with talent or effort. For decades, students have been told that college is about career readiness and little else. And the task of puzzling out an author’s argument will not prepare students to thrive in an economy that seems to run on vibes.
Has a whole generation lost the ability to read books?
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2024/10/has-a-whole-generation-lost-the-ability-to-read-books
Our obsession with "efficiency" has led to many students reading excerpts over whole books. But we lose something crucial when we disregard context.
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2024/10/has-a-whole-generation-lost-the-ability-to-read-books
Our obsession with "efficiency" has led to many students reading excerpts over whole books. But we lose something crucial when we disregard context.
Here's a simple solution to the pessimism culture. Read a book.
The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/elite-colleges-shocked-to-discover-students-don-t-know-how-to-read-hooks-my-jaw-dropped/ar-AA1rDnoG
Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/elite-colleges-shocked-to-discover-students-don-t-know-how-to-read-hooks-my-jaw-dropped/ar-AA1rDnoG
Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.
I fear books are going the way of vinyl records – a rarefied pursuit for hobbyists
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/06/fear-books-vinyl-records-rarified-pursuit-hobbyists
The impact of reading for pleasure on progress in vocabulary, spelling and even maths at age 16 is four times more powerful than the impact of parental education or socioeconomic status …
What and how to read
https://www.ft.com/content/685a4f4d-2826-494e-a8ab-e561801fb7b3
Given our finite lives, and the centuries-deep canon of literature, what logic is there in reading something current? More than 120mn unique titles have been published since the dawn of the printing press. What are the odds that one written in 2024 deserves our limited time? …
Well, instead of a list, here is a rule: avoid the contemporary. If a novel has worth, it will still have it in a decade or two. If not, the filtering effect of time — which is imperfect in its judgment, but still the best thing we have — will remove the book from consideration by then.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/06/fear-books-vinyl-records-rarified-pursuit-hobbyists
The impact of reading for pleasure on progress in vocabulary, spelling and even maths at age 16 is four times more powerful than the impact of parental education or socioeconomic status …
What and how to read
https://www.ft.com/content/685a4f4d-2826-494e-a8ab-e561801fb7b3
Given our finite lives, and the centuries-deep canon of literature, what logic is there in reading something current? More than 120mn unique titles have been published since the dawn of the printing press. What are the odds that one written in 2024 deserves our limited time? …
Well, instead of a list, here is a rule: avoid the contemporary. If a novel has worth, it will still have it in a decade or two. If not, the filtering effect of time — which is imperfect in its judgment, but still the best thing we have — will remove the book from consideration by then.